Matthias Sænguine Voss
'Apperance' To all who view Matthias, he appears to be a mix between wanderer and mage, with a heavy dose of something having gone terribly wrong. He wears his hear in thick dreadlocks which run along his skull and down behind it, with two individual dreadlocks formed from his sideburns. His clothes though... is terrifying. The near enteirety of his clothes, with the exception of that from his torso down, minus his robes, is entirely composed of living veins. Dyed crimson red with living blood pulsing around his body, the upper half of his robes emulates his musculature. It has woven itself to fit his own muscle pattern, stopping at the torso and the beginning of his forearms. Connected between his forearms and sweeping across his back is a literal cloak of veins. Around his face is a scarf-like extension of his robes, obscuring only the mouth and lower nose of his face from sight. To the sides of this are the skulls of wolves fashioned onto his shoulders, the lower jaws broken in half and resting on the sides of his torso. Beneath his "scarf" is an extension of ribs, protruding outwards slightly, remaining around but not physically touching his actual torso. In the center of his chest on the protrusion of ribs is a living, beating heart. His robes sweep down from his torso into a more robe-like fashion. They flow past his legs and sweep behind him, giving his stride a haunting, almost ghostlike feel. 'Personality' Whatever remains of the young, happy child who was Matthias Sænguine Voss is now but a shell of what it was, lying chained in some dark corner of the now dark, brooding, and murderiosuly focused mind of the monster he has become. His mind is filled with dark thoughts, and ever behind him is always the presence of the being he is now enslaved to: Absolem. His force of retribution and harbringer of doom, Matthias will do anything to fulfill the contract set out before him: retrieve The Codex Maleficarum for the return of his now deceased family, the only true thing in life he ever cared about, and now the only one he can remember. He is spurred on by a single flicker of hope, lost in a hellfire which has filled him to the core. He will stop at nothing to achieve this goal, both for himself and his new master. No matter who is in the way, no matter what obstacle may lie in his path, Matthias will corrode and shatter it all. 'History' The Codex Maleficarum… the axis of everything which has happened to Matthias, and is now his sole focus in the great city of Telarys... In his earlier years as a young boy, Matthias was born to the Voss family, a family well known for their rather strong affinity to magic, untarnished by the bonding of blood outside the Voss family tree. However, unlike most of the Sorcerous Houses and Colleges, the Voss family could not choose what magic they wished to study, but rather, the magic chose them. It is an interesting perk which gave them a sort of reputation, for having their magical prowess rolled by fate sort to speak. This developed into a long term rite of passage amongst the members of the family, usually taking around two years for a Voss family member to find his or her power. For Matthias, this turned him into somewhat of a black sheep amongst his family: he had been searching for five straight years of intense study and exploration into the vast multitude and variations, tasting the flavor of each and every type of arcane he came across… and yet none of them seemed to bond with him. He could sense the magic, what it was, how it shaped itself, but not one of them spoke to him or his soul. He was without magic in a world where magic was power. However, Matthias did not lose hope, nor did he become a sore point on his family’s name. Though without the power of magic at his hands, he could still feel and detect magic, and define the dimensions of what that magic was and what it could do. He became so skilled at it that this ability became second nature to him, always there and always passive, like an extra set of eyes which were always open… a sixth sense, to be more precise. At the time, this saved Matthias from a more sinister fate which was held behind his family’s crest. Long ago, where demons reigned and the arcane arts of Blood Magic and Sangromancy were at their strongest, a mighty artifact known as The Codex Maleficarum came into existence. No one knew where it came from or why it came to be; all that was known about the Codex is that it was a terribly powerful arcane book, possibly raising someone with the proper power to even wield the tome to a demigod-like status. His family, the Voss family, is part of a cult of families driven underground when their demon masters were overthrown and humanity triumphed over the darkness, driving the hoards of demons back beyond the twisting, nocturne veil. This cult society is called the Crimson Eclipse, for in those days where humanity bowed to daemonic overlords, the moon shown red. This was not a simple change of décor though; the moon has, ever since the demon princes asserted themselves dominance over the material plane, been an artificially created reservoir of power. Though none of the princes themselves knew this, a particular Arch Demon, nay, a Nether Lord that goes by the name of Absolem had been busily sacrificing souls and binding their flesh and blood to its surface, weaving his own grand master plan to summon himself to the world. He was a being who could easily corrupt, overthrow, and eventually consume that which stood in his way to a throne of blood. He would have succeeded too, if the humans hadn’t rebelled and the demons overthrown, with all and any remaining tomes of blood magic and sangromancy utterly destroyed. This set back Absolem by several hundred years of planning, and unbeknownst to the rest of the humans on their small plot of land, the moons glow was a radiant and chilling white from the thousands and thousands of souls trapped and bound to its floating mass. The blood bound upon it with Sangromantic powers had receded inside the moon, no longer so prominently drawn out by the demonic activities on the planet below. Though, it is said, that when such virulent actions do occur, the moon has an uneasy tendency to turn crimson. Thousands of years would pass, and in that time, Absolem would chain torrents more to the celestial body. The first phase of his inevitable plan complete, he now needed something to utilize the energies contained there. The moon had certainly more than enough raw power to summon him, but he required a catalyst, a very powerful catalyst, which only one of the most powerful artifacts ever created from seeming nothingness could do. It was then, where a breach between the veil occurred in Telarys, for reasons inexplicable. As a massive rift opened in the great city, a single, powerful tome came through to the other side, and altered the very fabric of reality to suit its own dark desires: The Codex Maleficarum. It was during this time that the ancestors of the Voss family first came in contact with the Codex, and Absolem set them up as his servants to hunt down and retrieve it. What happened then is unclear to both the Voss family and history itself, for the Voss’ went into hiding without the Codex, and the bloody tome itself seemingly went missing. Centuries later, in the more current spans of time, the young Matthias was still the young, strapping man he came to be, unaware of the dark underbelly of his family’s history, and ignorant to their true goal: The Codex. It is during this time that another family who sought the Codex and knew of the Voss’ goals, decided to have them eliminated. As the fates would have their stars align in only the darkest of signs this night, it would not only be the downfall and rise of the Voss family, but the night that the Codex would make itself known. Fervently, Absolem sought for even the slightest mote of its presence in the world over the centuries of time, until it finally dictated when it would reveal itself: in massacre. Easily detecting its presence, basking in the familiarity of blood, iron, and pure carnage which it embodied, Absolem rejoiced at its rediscovery. At that moment, he expanded his mind over the vast city of Telarys, listening in on each and every dark thought and undertaking that night, focusing on the inevitable near-destruction of the Voss family, his long line of cultists dedicated to his forthcoming. Such a loyal tool would not go to waste in his mind, and he needed someone of the family, someone with deep arcane talent and potential, someone who could bare it all and serve only Absolem in the end. Matthias felt a chill run down his spine as Absolem’s gaze settled on the young child. He would be his left hand of doom, his perfect servant. With the clean canvas of innocence for him to inscribe and lavish his work upon, it was truly a golden opportunity. The opposing family to the Voss’ had prepared for their attack. A simple and deadly attack of their most well trained assassins to slaughter their entirety in the dead of night. However, the Voss’ knew what lay beyond the veil just as much as they did, and were more than likely prepared to handle some demonic threat not sent by their master. Unfortunately for them, this partially did involve him. The other family was going to slaughter the entire Voss family with two very powerful things at their disposal: a dire werewolf, and an artifact called the Chains of Absolem. This item, made by the Nether Lord himself and bequeathed to the family, could grant a single body with the chain wrapped around them the power of a legion of demons. Doubled with the power of a werewolf with full control over his senses, this plan was flawless… until Absolem intervened. When the lycanthrope donned the chains, Absolem altered and bent the magic of the artifact. He, effectively, turned the werewolf into the artifact. However, as Absolem had planned, he could not contain the vast amount of power an entire legion of demons held within them, and something sinister was about to take place. Due to the vast demonic horde running through what was left of that one man’s body, the fur which would have been burst into a torrent of twisting, pulsing veins, roughly taking on the shapes of oblong and askew muscles bound to its body. The beast became a terror of wolf and blood, a werewolf enraged with blood magic of only the most potent kind. The creature went on a rampage. After slaughtering all assassins who he so closely worked with, he proceeded to tear the very roof off of the Voss manor, and worked his way from the top down. Matthias could easily sense the vast and overwhelming power which he was so unfamiliar to coming down upon him, feeling the arcane glows of his family being snuffed out left and right. Not knowing what this creature was, nor having any way of combating the beast with what measly human strength he had… He ran. Long into the night the creature hunted him down, but due to his sixth sense of magical detection, he was barely able to avoid and evade the twisted bloody mass which longed for his blood. And yet… new feelings began to emerge from long dormant parts of Matthias’ blood. It seemed to want to stay in the presence of this beast, though fear ultimately overshadowed this queer feeling, leading him into the twisting metal labyrinths beneath the vast city of Telarys herself. It turned to be a wrong mistake, for amongst the irons of the city were long forgotten arcane powers, which muted his ability to sense the creature. Unwilling to let himself stop, he continued to run further and further into the ground, until he reached a long corridor of pistons and hammers, connected to some long and forgotten machine whose antiquity was hardly notable. For a moment, Matthias thought himself safe, when he heard the low and blood curdling growl of whatever that foul beast was emerge from the shadows behind him. As he turned to look at the creature, he felt the whole of its presence: waves of dark tendrils of daemonic magic swirling within him like an endless void, as well as another power he did not recognize, though his very being seemed to dance and quiver at feeling it. Instinctually, the boy ran, no matter how strong his desire was to stay close to the creature. Yet as soon as he nary twitched a single muscle, the beast was upon him. Crimson jaws tightened themselves around his shoulder like thorns snuffing life out of a bush. Matthias screamed in agony, as he felt himself suddenly launched through the air, beyond a pane of glass, and straight into the ancient controls of this monolithic machine. As his bloodied, glass embedded back slid off the controls, his weight helped push the lever to the on position. At first, a slight pause, then the iron monstrosity roared to life, with pistons hammers and gears spinning in every what way direction. The creature leapt and bound between the moving bits of machinery, when a hammer and piston came careening out of its peripherals, crushing the beast flat in one fell stroke. Its body slumped onto more moving bits of machinery, somehow able to clog the machine from function as its head torn open and agape remained prominent from the twisted metal. The damage done, the bite transferred, the moon still high in the sky, Matthias soon began to feel his exterior transform, as bones broke and reformed and flesh stretched to angles unfamiliar. The pain was… excruciating. Yet, as his screams turned slowly into roars and howls, his flesh too pierced forth from its new fur laden exterior. Not only had Matthias contracted lycantorhopy, his body now seethed and pulsated with Sangromancy. One of the many arts which had been lost to the ages, untouched by humanity until only the most immediate of events; Sangromancy was the sorcery his body adapted to. He transformed into the same creature which lay dead before him: a humanoid wolf monstrosity of blood and flesh. This same feeling wafted upon the immediate area, a thick fog of blood and miasma rolling forth from his transformed state. This reacted with what remained of the other creature, and boiling out of its jaws in a swash of black clouds, the demons that still inhabited its body spewed forth, lunging at the newly formed monstrosity in an attempt to posses it. However… they would not succeed. Not only would this be the first transformation of a newly created werewolf, the point at which they have no control and are at one of the most bloodthirsty moments of their existence, but Sangromancy has just been bound to his blood as his chosen form of sorcery. Though this form for the first of many full moon nights was only for tonight, nothing would stop the carnage he would unleash. With demons running straight at him, the beast had itself a massacre. It started with the first demon, tearing his claws through its head. As the gore simply grew about him, the wild and untamed Sangromancer empowered his claws. On that single night, it slaughtered an entire legion of demons before its feet. It roared triumphantly as its howl bounced through the metal abyss of Telarys’ underbelly, until it resonated through the entire city as a single low growl. Seeing the creature’s power for himself, Absolem thought it ready for introductions. Utilizing the mass slaughter of demons as his point of reference to the material world, the Nether Lord opened a path between the mortal world, and his. The blood spilled along the walls and floors began to twist and bend. Its mass stretched and strained, transforming into a carpet of veins, leading down a dark and winding path. A pulse begun to echo through the chamber, and the beast was lured into Absolem’s clutch. Down and down the beast ran, the pulsing only becoming stronger, until a vast, open chasm appeared before the creature. It was filled with blood, its walls were solid flesh, and jaws and eyes littered the ceiling above. In the chasm’s center stood a throne, constructed of bone, blood, and a century’s worth of daemon corpses bound to its form. Sitting in the throne looked to be a being armored from head to toe in a skeletal carapace. It had no face, yet blood seeped from the segmented slits of its exterior, and a multitude of fleshy appendages protruded from its back, through the throne, and off into distant eternities which only it knew where they reached. The beast sprinted through the crimson sea to rip what stood in front of it apart. It leapt at the creature, but in vain. The figure raised a single arm, and the beast was levitated in mid air. Helpless, it struggled against nothing as yet another arm rose parallel to the other. The hands clenched, grabbing the monstrosity from a distance. The beast grew wild as a soul wrenching agony which even it feared raged through its being. The mighty arch demon spread his arms, and with the now screaming bodies of both the man and the wolf separated, but connected still by a cloak of veins, words of a foul, putrid, necrotic tongue feasted upon the last remaining vestiges of his sanity, “Matthias Sænguine Voss, you are mine.” …what happened that night is too terrible to speak of. What walked out from the depths of Telarys’ twisting underbelly was something more terrible than the sum of what terrors lurked in the dark that night. For who was once Matthias is now but a shell of his former self. As he walked up from corners more sinister and deeper than they should have been, he now knew exactly what he had to do. No matter how long it would take, no matter what he would have to go through to achieve it, and uncaring of anyone he would have to destroy in the process, Matthias would find and deliver The Codex Maleficarum to his new master, in the hope of regaining all which he had lost. 'Advantages' Name X (Linked to Advance Page) - Description as related to character 'Linked Story Elements' Link, Link, Link